Imperishable Inheritance

At Christ­mas Con­fer­ence, there was a thing where you could and do an inter­ac­tive walk through your Chris­t­ian life thus far (called “Jour­ney”). I was unable to par­take, but one of the neat things they was that you made a bead bracelet where each bead rep­re­sents a per­son in my life who has effected you spir­i­tu­ally. Well, I don’t have beads, but I do have a blog! I would like to acknowl­edge those who have helped/influence me spir­i­tu­ally. It should be made clear that these are in no real par­tic­u­lar order. The fact is that they are the peo­ple who have left the deep­est mark upon my spir­i­tual, and for that mat­ter life, development.

Perry Poteet. Perry has been of course the largest influ­ence (ok, so I’m pri­or­i­tiz­ing one). We have been through more together than I prob­a­bly ever go through with any­body. We strug­gled as friends in high school (mostly because of me), saw our par­ents get divorced, ask ques­tions about our­selves and our spir­i­tual path, and other per­sonal issues. He is my soul mate (that’s right Miriam, he’s my soul mate).

Chris­tine Bourke. Chris­tine was the one who took me in when I was new to Cru­sade. She showed me what the love of Christ was in prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion. No one else lis­tened to my new age rants and rav­ings as much as her. It’s some­times dif­fi­cult to put into words how much we can love some­body, and I can­not describe the depth of love I have for her.

John McClure. John was the per­son who shared the Gospel with me, and I con­sider him my first dis­ci­pler. He also was the per­son who bap­tized me. He showed me the prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion of faith, but he also demon­strated that hav­ing good doc­trine does not have to detract from spread­ing the love of Christ. His bal­ance of desire for shar­ing the Gospel and hav­ing good doc­trine is some­thing I hope to attain.

Matt Mar­tin. Matt is my cur­rent dis­ci­pler, and he in all respects has been my first dis­ci­pler. He is the one who lis­tens to my strug­gles and I his. What I have learned most from Matt is his desire to lead a min­istry under the guid­ing and author­ity of God; he con­tin­ues to seek to glo­rify Christ in how he han­dles his admin­is­tra­tion of his min­istries. He helps me to live my faith practically.

Trevor Traub. Trevor was a per­son who impacted me in how I view every­thing. He was the first per­son to get me to ask deeper ques­tions, and I am so grate­ful for it. I have such an incred­i­ble amount of respect for Trevor’s pur­suit of truth, and it def­i­nitely had a big influ­ence on my own pur­suit. I hope he con­tin­ues to search.

Gwen Robin­son. If you were to ask me: “who has the best the­ol­ogy of any­one you know?” I would respond, “Gwen Robin­son.” Gwen is the embod­i­ment of love and honor in her rela­tion­ship with Christ. You can’t be around her and not leave know­ing that she is deeply in love with Jesus Christ.

Dr. William Irvine. Dr. Irvine was my one and only phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sor at WSU, and he was the one who gave me more tools to approach the pur­suit of truth philo­soph­i­cally. He helped me to hone the way I think, and he con­tin­ues to watch me as I develop per­son­ally and intel­lec­tu­ally. He has cer­tainly seen me prac­tice a few religions!

Simon Foust. Simon got my eye orig­i­nally when he ran the site: Speak­ing Ratio­nally. He defended the Chris­t­ian faith through rea­son and intel­li­gent thought, and he made me see that it was pos­si­ble to be an “intel­lec­tual” and be a believer on Christ. He con­tin­ues to chal­lenge me in my own doc­trine, and I am proud to call him a brother.

Ash­ley Hes­ter­man. Ash­ley has been a greater influ­ence this year, because it wasn’t until this year that I really got to know her; but even through the past cou­ple of years I had much respect for her. She con­tin­ues to uphold the Bib­li­cal man­date for how a woman is to inter­act in the Body, and I’m so inspired to see her search for uphold­ing that position.

Pas­tor Terry Mor­gan. Pas­tor Mor­gan was my first pas­tor at Sov­er­eign Grace Bap­tist. I have a deep respect for him. He was the per­son I kept try­ing to impress, but every time I would have a new the­o­log­i­cal con­cept he would have 3 books on the issue! He has cer­tainly given me a great model in how to effec­tively and Bib­li­cally shep­erd a flock.

Leroy Ham­mer­strom. I have learned so much from Leroy, and what I’ve learned the most is not from what he has said. He has and con­tin­ues to lead his wife in min­istry in a way that I hope to attain. When I think of an upright, the­o­log­i­cally bal­anced, car­ing indi­vid­ual Leroy is in the top of that list. I am espe­cially encour­aged by his heed­ing the call to reach the nations.

Aaron Shafo­val­off. I admit, If there were an “intel­lec­tual soul­mate” Aaron would be that per­son. I under­stand Aaron so much and he I, because we have much of the same man­ner­isms and desire for the­o­log­i­cal inqui­si­tion. I have seen Aaron grow in incred­i­ble ways in the few years I’ve known him. I’m so inspired by his pas­sion for the Bib­li­cal Christ and his desire to shout that from the roof tops.

Trisha Burns. Trisha was the first per­son that I truly inter­acted with who had a deep love for inter­na­tional stu­dents and the unreached. I know that Trisha has a true, deep, abid­ing desire to pro­claim the Gospel to those that haven’t heard. I con­tinue to see her prac­tice this, and I am so proud to be involved in the min­istry she started.

Bobby Fleck. When no one else wants to go pro­claim the Gospel, I know Bobby will. I have learned so much from his deep desire to pro­claim the Gospel with­out reser­va­tion and com­pro­mise. I am also encour­aged to see his deep desire to reach the unreached, and I am proud to call him my friend and brother.

Even though these are a few that stand out, they cer­tainly are not the end of the list. There are a few more peo­ple that I would like to men­tion both of male and female. These indi­vid­u­als as well have played a huge role on my Chris­t­ian development.

Men. Dad, Sean Wheeler, Jason Har­mon, Jim Ryan, Jim Knapp, Andy McDonie, Nate Kin­caid, Jeff Dehart, David Fultz, Jason Wal­ters, Jesse Schlicher, Abhi­nav Krishna, Don Church, Lenny Tav­er­nelli, Jason Wing, Rob Turner, Justin Schell, Travis Kavanaugh, Nick Nye.

Women. Mom, Amanda Vince, Kari David, Jes­sica Tul­lidge, Leslie Zate, Brit­tany Nye, Susie Oberer, Bethany Andrze­jew­ski, Melissa Gos­sard, Janiece Brown, Sarah Cooney, Trinh Pham, Tiffany Wolf, Jen­nifer Karber.

And mad props to all my friends from The Trav­el­ing Team and IT Project ’05!